10. Water Fluoridation

Back in the 1950s water fluoridation was, for some, a big thing. A very big thing. We had the threat of communism. We had the threat of “The Bomb.” And then, according to some, we had the related threat of fluoridation.

It is not our purpose here to cover all the arguments pro and con that put this, or any of the other 10 “awful, terrible, frightening things that are going to kill us all,” on our list. But to point out that none of them yet has. There has to be a lesson (or maybe a few) in this.

One is that there are many things on this earth that are dangerous. As movie gangsters used to say, “No one gets out’a here alive!”

There are many things that are poisonous to us if we are exposed to them in large quantities. But, interestingly, some of those very same things prove beneficial when we are exposed to them in smaller amounts.

For example, swallow a whole bottle of aspirin and it will make you sick, or may even kill you. But taking a prescribed dose of two tablets after, say, a protracted discussion about the dangers of water fluoridation and the secret cabal supposedly behind it can do wonders.

The list should be longer: Amazon rain forest depletion, acid rain, ozone layer depletion, and GM crops, just to name a few off the top of my head. All those things were supposed to have killed us all by now.

Author’s note: The fact is none of the “10 awful, terrible, frightful things” on this list has yet wiped every human being off the earth, but that does not mean none ever will. And if that ever does occur, the author promises to write a full retraction, along with an apology, at the very first opportunity.Perhaps you can write your retraction & apology now, then hermetically seal it in an envelope "to be opened only in the event you get wiped off the earth", and store it where survivor(s), if any, can easily find it.

All I know about the red food dye is that when my mother eliminated the red flavors of Kool Aid and Jell-o from the house, my hyperactive brother was much more manageable. He never let his kids have anything with red dye either just to be on the safe side.

Never underestimate the sheer insanity of conspiracy theorists, and I'm not just talking about the Democrats' useful idiots (a.k.a. low-information voters). The same kind of goose-stepping nutjobs who read The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion as holy writ and think the Mossad orchestrated 9/11 continue to spout off in the likes of Zero Hedge's comments sections and the articles on Lew Rockwell's retarded hate site about how fluoridation is killing us all. (For just one example among many: http://archive.lewrockwell.com/spl/detox-flouride.html)

As with everything on this list, my response is generally: well, if we're all going to die from it, we sure do seem to be taking our time.

Incidentally, while I agree that #5 belongs on this list, I think you should have disguised it by calling it "Climate Change" instead. That way, you could still talk about how global cooling was going to kill us all while going into how the climate cultists have lately changed their minds and decided global warming is going to kill us all. Of course, even if these Chicken Littles revert back to screaming about global cooling again, they'll still be screaming about Climate Change. Regardless of which way they go, though, unlike the eco-wackos of 1975, they won't be saying "Start burning some more coal before we all freeze to death, for pity's sake!" Their recommended solution will be (surprise!) even MORE government meddling in our lives.

Rahm Emanuel's line about "Never let a crisis go to waste" long predates the Rahmster himself -- Liberals love to have periods of 'vague' crisis, because they want a reason to tell everybody what to do on an issue where there's not obvious, or immediate, answer to the problem.

The more vague the status is without a clear answer, the more any answer, with the proper support, can be pushed on the public as the proper response, and the more the cause and the solution can be adjusted as needed by the same people, to maintain their control.

Rahm Emanuel's line about "Never let a crisis go to waste" long predates the Rahmster himself -- Liberals love to have periods of 'vague' crisis, because they want a reason to tell everybody what to do on an issue where there's not obvious, or immediate, answer to the problem.

The more vague the status is without a clear answer, the more any answer, with the proper support, can be pushed on the public as the proper response, and the more the cause and the solution can be adjusted as needed by the same people, to maintain their control.

My nieces and nephews who were raised on a steady diet of global warming hyteria in school think I'm nuts when I tell them it's all just political BS and not real. They sputter and shout that I'm a "DENIER!!!!" I'm some kind of heretic! I smile and calmly point out that I am just OLDER than they are and, having seen a lot of these politically motivated hysteria movements come and go over the decades, I know better than to believe everything I hear. Especially when my lying eyes can see there is no validity to any of it.

Oddly, some of them have to take the cigarettes out of their mouths in order to do their shouting about how "the science is settled."

BTW, can anyone tell me what happened to the hole in the ozone layer that was going to kill all of us a while back???

Sounds like an opportunity to snark back at them to me. "Those cigarettes are killing you. The science is settled; though I'm not sure what else you expected from inhaling the rough equivalent of bus fumes into your lungs on a daily basis..."

The list should be longer: Amazon rain forest depletion, acid rain, ozone layer depletion, and GM crops, just to name a few off the top of my head. All those things were supposed to have killed us all by now.

Yeah, I've lately seen retarded conspiracy theories about GMO on Zero Hedge and Lew Rockwell as well. It's usually under the word "Monsanto" on there, as in "Monsanto is conspiring with ZOG to drain the purity of essence of our bodies and minds with GMO crops and fluoridation!"

Just as neo-Pagans need modern idols to venerate, I guess neo-anti-Semites need modern demons to execrate.

Could we please please please put the 10 things on the first page, and hyperlink them so we can click on them separately? Having to page thru all 10 (or whatever number) of the items is annoying as hell, especially when half or more of the items are plain silly.

The only apocalyptic scare that worried me is one you left off your list: nuclear holocaust. That scared me a bit when I was 16, but now I'm more worried about "Plan 9 from Outer Space" than anything else, just because it's kinda fun to think about it. What's really peculiar about all these scares, including AGW (unaccountably left of the list too) is that those who predict them all have only one solution for them: world fascism now! If they ever had an actual solution I might take them seriously, but nope. It's always a way to increase the power of the petty tyrants. Meh.

Scared the crap out of me, too - when I bothered to think about it. Today, MAD gives me reason for hope. The superpowers had the ability to destroy each other, and the world, BUT THEY DIDN'T! To me, that says something positive about humanity.

Of course, today it's a different ball game. I don't think the Indians or the Pakistanis or the Israelis or the French are likely to wipe out humanity. But there are some other critters out there with nukes - or who would like to get their hands on nukes - whose sanity I definitely do not trust.

I think I'm more worried about them than I ever was about the Soviets or the Chinese...or the US.

Yours is merely a hypothesis. Once Iran has The Bomb, AND there is leadership in other countries that convincingly makes the case that Iran would be obliterated if it uses the The Bomb, then the hypothesis will be testable. Israel does not make the case for MADD, simply because they do not acknowledge having The Bomb. (Gotta Capitalize It). As for our current President making that case convincingly.... not.

When it starts to wear, you can get a stroke trying to get a formerly non-stick pan clean. (This is why I hide my Teflon pans from the children, who can't seem to get it through their heads that you do NOT use your fork to stir the scrambled eggs.)

You are far more likely to die from drowning when you walk off of a pier while on your cell phone than you are to get brain cancer. (Just ask anyone around the docks that bothers to look up from their own cell phone when they hear a splash).

Fracking - sorry, but when I hear that word, I just cannot associate it with getting natural gas out of the ground. (I do get an image of Starbuck in the old Battlestar Galactica. Come to think of it, it was a term for a form of fluid pumping there, too...)